The Magic Show Special MTGOTraders.com Edition
Hello everybody, welcome to a special edition of the Magic Show. This time around we’re going to have two segments: The first is building and playtesting Mono Green Aggro for Time Spiral block, a budget option to the already cheap Standard version, and then we’ll take a look at what I think are underrated (and therefore underpriced) cards that you can pick up on the cheap.
So here is Part 1: Building and Playtesting Mono Green Aggro
Download the Hi-Res version here (112MB)
Here is the final decklist for the Mono Green Aggro Build:
Mono Green Aggro Time Spiral Block Legal Land: 21 17 Forest 4 Terramorphic Expanse Creatures: 25 4 Groundbreaker 2 Jedit Ojanen of Efrava 4 Primal Forcemage 4 Timbermare 4 Uktabi Drake 4 Wall of Roots 3 Yavimaya Dryad | Other Spells: 14 2 Evolution Charm 4 Might of Old Krosa 4 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss 4 Search for Tomorrow Sideboard 3 Spike Feeder 4 Whirling Dervish 4 Krosan Grip 4 Utopia Vow |
And here is Part 2: Underrated Cards. Here are a few choice picks of my own for cards that I think have a tremendous growth value in the coming months.
Download the Hi-Res version here (15MB)
Here is the transcript of Part 2:
Undervalued cards:
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV. The new Scry spells and this guy are going to get better and better. Plus, he's still fantastic against Dragonstorm. A $1.50 is not a bad deal at all.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero. As of this writing, he's a whole $.70. Now I've spent $2.10 on a playset of cardboard Wild Mongrels, let alone four rares which could, at the very least, be excellent in casual and could very well have block and standard constructed applications.
Imp's Mischief. There look to be some really fantastic black cards in Future Sight, and believe me when I say this card is about a 1,000 better than it looks. Mechanics like Fateseal will be extremely painful, and the ability to redirect them--regardless the loss of life--will be crucial. You can pick up a whole playset for just over a dollar!
Magus of the Coffers - Seriously, black is going to get good. While this guy may not make the cut, at $.50 he's worth buying a couple copies just to be safe.
Mirri the Cursed - Again, black black black. This finally fell to a single buck and the chance for Mono Black Aggro or some form of Mono Black Control hitting the meta hard is likely. Mirri was impressive when she first debuted, and now that those coals have cooled we have a chance to pick her up cheap.
Roiling Horror - Extremely underrated. If you are at any sort of life advantage when this guy hits, it's usually good game thereafter. If you don't fully understand what he does, plop down a buck and a half and try him out. Something with Black and Red or a Mono Black block deck just aches for this guy.
Torchling - At $.40, there is no Morphling better priced. Again, a buck and a half for insurance that this may or may not be fantastic one day is worth it to me.
Magus of the Scroll - Have you seen the new Hellbent land? Guess who lives there? At $.90 a piece, they're a hell of a deal. Gruul and just maybe RDW will be back with a vengence.
Plague Sliver - If you play block, this guy is an absolute steal $.35 to nearly shut down the combo sliver deck before it gets started is about as good as it gets. In constructed he's _still_ a Juzam Djinn, and that's still playable enough as a finisher. This is certainly worth a buck for a set.
Trickbind - Firstly, at $.70 this is not a bad deal at all. It's playable in virtually every format. Secondly, it is one of those cards that needs a _little_ something to make it fantastic. That something may be in Future Sight. But even if it's not, a three dollar set of fantastic and extremely usable rares in block and standard is nothing to sneeze at.
Vesuvan Shapeshifter - One of the most expensive cards on the list is easily the most powerful. These are going to get better with virtually every new creature printed. At $3.25 they are going nowhere but up. Get your set today or regret it later when you're shelling out $4.50->$5.00 a pop.
Cytoplast Root-Kin - At $1.15, this guy is only going to go up. Why? Llanowar Reborn is a new land with Graft 1. This means the Graft archetype is going to get nuts again, and buying this guy cheap will put you above the curve.
Djinn Illuminatus - The new Pact spells are free. Guess which guy makes these instant-win combos? Play the green Pact over and over for free, Grapshot for the win much? At $.35, these are only going up, even if it is casual territory.
Golgari Grave-Troll is a $1.50. Dredge is about to go prime time, and has been doing very well in Premier Events. Cards like Llanowar Mentor are going to push him over the top. Get your set before this doubles or triples in price.
Overgrown Tomb is $8.75. This is the same price I bought my Watery Graves at just before Dralnu took over the metagame. Now the Graves are $12.50 and aren't losing their value. Dredge and the new Delve will do the same for Overgrown Tomb. A dual land under nine bucks is just a steal no matter how you slice it.
Temple Garden - Speaking of, $8.00 for this is absurd. This is a land you'll never not use in a deck anywhere near Green and White.
Thanks for watching,
Evan “misterorange” Erwin
dubya dubya dubya dot misterorange dot com
eerwin +at+ gmail +dot+ com
15 Comments
Great Article, loved the card idea's, i'm always overlooking lots of cool cards, so that really helped :D
I really did enjoy this style of article, it was great, but there is room for imrpovement. I think it would be outstanding if you would bring the deck "MGA" into a PE, and comment on your plays, etc. and explain which cards to sideboard against which decks.
You have the gist of it with this style of video, and you obviously have the great talent of commentary and video-editing, you just need to take the idea one step further!
I liked the article, particularly the card suggestions.
I am curious, however, why you would want 4 Terramorphic Expanses in a mono build, especially one that is aggro. It seems like there are enough cards to thin the deck already.
Thanks for the kind words everybody.
@ Javasci - You are completely correct and I apologize for the error. However, you could still use Swift Silence with the Pact + Illuminatus to draw your deck. A little goofy, but something to consider :)
Like I said in the vid, I'm a huge fan of the store, so as long as I'm playing MTGO, I'll probably be shopping right here. Big thanks to Heath for the invite, and any suggestions on what you guys might like to see here is welcome.
There is only one thing I noticed and that the others didn't mention so far, your vid's don't say "puremtgo", but thats just a minor point since the rest is perfect, besides the djinn.
Hoping to see some more articles from you on this site.
Yeah don't worry I already pointed that out to Evan. I told him the videos were for puremtgo and not mtgotraders but this was after he made the video's. It is a tad confusing I must say to have 2 sites like this but I wanted to make something seperate from mtgotraders. He said his next videos will say puremtgo and not mtgotraders.com
Great article as always and good to see you writing for MTGOTraders
Cool article, thanks for writing here! Just a thought about running a splash color. You have 10 ways of fixing mana (4x Expanse, 4x Search 2x Evolution) that makes it so you can run a couple mana of any color that you want to splash. White would give you mystic enforcer, black would let you run the Ana Battlemage, which seems like a neat card for this deck. Often by the time you have 5 mana they're playing defense, but Ana takes care of that, plus gets damage in. Kind of a back up for both the thundermare (tap blockers) and for the utopia vows, which clear out blockers.
Just something I've been tinkering with adding to the deck.
I liked the article; especially the pricing section. I tend to agree with you on all of those, especially Imp's mischief. I have already picked up my playsets of all of these cards, however.
The buiding was good. I like the concept for a budget competitive deck for block. Block is one of the most difficult formats to build for, and all I've really seen so far is a lot of slivers and a Mono-blue control deck. Keep the block concept going. I like it!
Heartily agree on your card selections. When I think about some of the price changes over time in MtG, it always behooves one to get playsets of the underrated rares. Necropotence was a junk rare in Ice Age at one point. While Invasion Block was fresh you could get 4 Reya Dawnbringers for a Skizzik or a Pyre Zombie and folks would have told you that you had been burned. Going back even further, there was a time that you could get 4 Juzams for a Guardian Beast, Singing Tree was worth as much as a Mox, and a Shivan Dragon was worth 4 Dual Lands. Imp's Mischief and Trickbind have a lot of potential...
Veerrryyy cooool dude, love the videos, ALOT more fun to watch and listen then read! =)
Replicate doesn't increase the storm count, as the copies aren't played with replicate, and storm looks for spells that were played.
After watching Evans video's on SCG's I knew I had to get him on puremtgo so I hope you all enjoy his video and please leave feedback and tell him what you would like him to cover next in the world of MTGO.
Having such a big "source of inspiration" here is absolutely big pleasure. I know that there are many players who are just waiting for your next article so they can have a deck idea. Welcome again to PureMTGO. The second part of the video/article is excellent. There you mentioned many great cards/mechanics from the Future Sight set but I don't know near as much about Future Sight as you do, so perhaps these days you can make another video/article to share those information with us. Other than a few cards I saw on mtg.com, I know nothing about the set and I'm sure there are others like me. Just a thought.
I wonder why you started writing like this because you're so good at writing, so I don't know if I'll be good at writing if I experience this. :) 메이저놀이터추천